"The government will not tolerate statements that create dissonance in our society and disrespect for others."
Jean Augustine, former Minister of State for Multiculturalism

Saturday, September 02, 2006

'Tis An Ill Wind

When tuberculosis was a great scourge of public health, every immigrant to Canada was required to take a tuberculin test. If the immigrant tested positive, he was denied entry.

In our more enlightened age, where respect for individual rights is much more highly regarded, we are expected to admit all the sick and diseased of the world, because it is their right to go wherever they want, without regard for the health and safety of others.

But to assuage public concerns, there is in place a practice known as medical surveillance, which does not bar persons with inactive TB or syphilis, but merely requires them to report themselves to public health authorities within 30 days of arriving in Canada.

Naturally, we dare not quarantine our own native-born disease carriers.

The result: tuberculosis and syphilis are now spreading again where they had once been eliminated, along with a host of other diseases returned in antibiotic and vaccine-resistant forms.

And now we're going to be expected to take in a group of HIV-infected "refugees" who used the International AIDS Conference in Toronto as an excuse to get treatment they couldn't get at home.

Joe Warmington has the details about what appears to have been a deliberately executed plan, aided by local immigration lawyers, to allow HIV-infected persons to get around the queue.

And we know who pays for it in the end.

Who suffers and dies on a waiting list to pay for these people's treatment?